JUNE 16 • 2022 | 51

GOING LARGE AND 
WINNING; JULIE 
ANDREWS’ “JEWISH” HITS

Jerry and Marge Go Large, 
an original Paramount+ film, 
begins streaming on June 
17. It is based on the true 
story of Jerry Selbee (Bryan 
Cranston) and his wife, 
Marge (Annette Bening). 
The couple, who are now in 
their 80s, was the subject 
of many articles and a 60 
Minutes story.
The Selbees have long 
lived in Evart, Mich., a small 
town (about 2,000 people) 
in Osceola County. Before 
retiring, the Selbees made 
a modest living from their 
convenience store. Not long 
after they retired, Michigan 
introduced (2003) a new 
lottery game called Winfall. 
Jerry, who has a college 
degree in mathematics, 
uncovered a mathematical 
quirk in the Winfall lottery 
game. Anyone (legally) could 
earn “net” winnings if they 
bought enough tickets. He 
enlisted friends in a “betting 
pool” or club. 
When the Michigan game 
ended, the Selbees found 
a similar game in another 
state. The club’s “grand” net 
winnings total was $8 mil-
lion, before taxes. In a 2021 
profile, the couple said they 
still live in Evart and that 
they used their winnings to 
found a construction financ-
ing company that helps to 
build homes for military vet-
erans in Northern Michigan. 

David Frankel, 62, direct-
ed the film. Frankel, an 
observant Jew, has helmed 
some really big comedy hits, 
including The Devil Wears 
Prada and Marley and Me. 
His father is Pulitzer Prize-
winner Max Frankel, now 

92. Max and his family fled 
Nazi Germany in 1940. He 
retired (1996) as the NY 
Times executive editor.
After a two-year delay, 
due to the pandemic, the 
American Film Institute (AFI) 
finally got a chance to give 
actress/singer Julie Andrews 
an AFI lifetime achievement 
award. As I write this, the 
June 9 ceremony hasn’t yet 
happened and, for what-
ever reason, the AFI never 
reveals, in advance, the 
names of the celebrities who 
will speak at a lifetime cere-
mony. But you have to figure 
some are Jewish. 
A video of the ceremony 
will air on TNT at 10 p.m. on 
June 16, with a repeat show-
ing at 11:30 p.m. There will 
also be an encore showing 
on TCM, but the date is not 

yet set. 
When I saw that Andrews, 
a truly great musical actress, 
was being honored, I 
thought of the most famous 
musicals she starred in. They 
were My Fair Lady (origi-
nal Broadway production; 
1956-58), Mary Poppins (film, 
1964) and The Sound of 
Music (film, 1965).
 I then realized that all 
these musicals were writ-
ten or co-written by Jews. 
I suspect that Ms. Andrews 
knows this, too. My Fair 
Lady was written by Alan J. 
Lerner (script of musical and 
song lyrics) and Frederick 
Loewe (music; Loewe’s 
father was Jewish). By the 
way, Lerner and Loewe’s first 
musical (1942), titled Life of 
the Party, was written for a 
Detroit theater company. 
Richard Rodgers (music) 
and Oscar Hammerstein II 
(lyrics) wrote The Sound of 
Music songs (Hammerstein’s 
father was Jewish). The 
Mary Poppins songs were 
written by Richard Sherman, 
now 93, and his late broth-
er, Robert Sherman. Julie 
Andrews lauded them in 
the 2009 documentary The 
Boys: the Sherman Brothers 
Story. It’s now streaming on 
the Disney Channel.
Irma Vep, an eight-ep-
isode HBO Max series, 
began streaming on HBO 
Max on June 6. The reviews 
were almost uniformly great. 
The series centers around 
Mira (Alicia Vikander). She’s 
a troubled American movie 
star who comes to France 
to star as Irma Vep, the title 
character in a remake of a 
French silent film classic. 
The role has troubling psy-
chological effects on Mira.
Carrie Brownstein, 
47, plays Mira’s agent. 

Brownstein is best known as 
a member of Sleater-Kinney, 
a long-popular rock band. 
She showed she could 
act when she co-starred 
in the IFC comedy series 
Portlandia.
The series was written and 
directed by Olivier Assayas, 
67, a famous French film-
maker. His father, Raymond 
Assayas, was a top French 
screenwriter. Raymond came 
from a Sephardi family that 
settled in France after WWI. 
He escaped the Nazis and 
joined the Free French forc-
es overseas. On Olivier’s 
13th birthday, Raymond 
casually told Olivier: “If 
we were practicing Jews, 
you’d have your bar mitz-
vah today.” Olivier, stunned, 
asked a few questions and 
his father confirmed that he 
was Jewish.
Olivier’s mother was 
raised Protestant, but she, 
too, has some Jewish ances-
try (it’s unclear how much). 
Olivier was raised Christian, 
but he’s long been secular. 
He said in an interview: “You 
can’t avoid the echoes of 
that history [the Holocaust]. 
It shapes your identity. So, in 
a way I’ve been extremely 
concerned and defined by 
my half-Jewish identity, even 
if it was passed on to me in 
a such an awkward way.” 

CELEBRITY NEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

ARTS&LIFE

THE PEABODY AWARDS VIA WIKIPEDIA 

Carrie Brownstein

CANADIAN FILM CENTRE VIA WIKIPEDIA

David Frankel

EVA RINALDI VIA WIKIPEDIA

Julie Andrews

